The Unforgotten Child
by spookycc
Summary: A young boy was kidnapped by the Masucci family, months ago. Now Major Case has an informant who knows where the boy is. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: The Unforgotten Child**

**Chapter One**

Author: spookycc

Summary: A young boy was kidnapped by the Masucci family, months ago. Now Major Case has an informant who knows where the boy is.

Spoilers: No specific ep spoilers, timeline is during Deakins' tenure as captain. Probably back in US Season 2-3 when Goren could run a little easier. ;-))

Disclaimer: Ah, I remember THESE things from X-Files fanfic. ;-P I don't own anyone in here except for Samuel Jacobson, who is my own creation. The other characters belong to D. Wolf and NBC/Universal. I'm just taking them for a spin, and I'll return them relatively unharmed. (Note the term "relatively" - if you've read my X-Files Doggettfic, you'll know what I mean wg ).

Reviews gladly accepted - I haven't hit my stride channeling Goren yet.

**Author's Notes: **

This is an unadulterated plagiarism of a loooong-ago work of my own. I hadn't read it in ages, and it looked like I could adapt it to LOCI.

I'm a very new (but verrrry obsessed J ) LOCI fan, so please be kind if my characterizations aren't spot-on yet. My stories assume intense BA friendship, but nothing romantic. In the X-Files world, we called it "UST".

I'm not a doctor or an EMT, so any please overlook all the medical blunders. ;P Also, I've only been to NYC three times, so my knowledge of the area is limited, although I did use reference works to determine locations.

**The Unforgotten Child - Chapter 1 **

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**Major Case Squad room **

**11th Floor - One Police Plaza **

**NYC**

"Samuel Jacobson…" Detective Robert Goren repeated the name as he played it over in his mind. He remembered the boy, of course. He was calling to frontal memory the details of the child's abduction at the hand of one of New York City's most notorious mob families. They had nabbed him as leverage against someone intent on betraying them. It had happened several months ago, and there'd been no word on the boy's location or well-being for the entire time. Now, though, they had a lead - or so it seemed.

"This guy emailed us yesterday," Deakins explained. "After we checked his credentials, we checked out his story. It rings true," he added. "We think he's legit."

According to the computer screen in front of them, Samuel Jacobson was alive, and their informant knew his current whereabouts.

Eames jotted the pertinent information down, and nodded once to Goren. They took the elevator down to 1PP garage, and their waiting SUV.

With Eames driving toward the location that the informant had provided, Goren acted as her navigator, letting her know where to turn, what landmarks they were looking for.

Glancing over, Eames saw a dark look cross her partner's face.

"Bobby? What is it?"

Goren shook his head. "It's just… why would the Masucci family let this information leak out? They're usually very… they wouldn't let a nobody like our informant have access to where they're holding the child."

Eames heard her partner out, and trusted his hunches. They'd served them both well in the past. But still… "Everyone screws up, Bobby, even the Masucci's. I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but…"

"Gift horse…" Goren pondered.

"What?"

"I was just thinking of the horse in the Godfather movie…"

Eames swallowed, and kept her attention on the road. It _was_ unusual for information to be forthcoming from the mob, and her suspicions were raised a level by her partner's concern.

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**Carthage Moving and Storage **

**Southern Boulevard **

**Bronx NY**

Eames and Goren arrived at the block where the informant had said the Masucci were holding Samuel Jacobson. They were looking for a parking spot when a sleek black limo pulled up to the curb a block ahead of them. Three men left the vehicle. Eames slowed and pulled into a spot well behind the limo.

They watched and waited, few words exchanged, until one of the men came back out. With him was a young boy. There was no mistaking who this must be - the Masucci family wasn't in the habit of randomly abducting children.

Realizing they were too far away to intercept them here, Eames slipped the black Expedition into gear and prepared to follow them. After the man had bundled Samuel into the back seat, the limo pulled out into the relatively sparse late-night traffic, and Eames pulled out a couple car lengths behind.

Stopped at a red light, with Eames and Goren still a few cars behind, the back door to the limo flew open. Samuel leaped out and took off down the street. The limo driver squealed away from the curb, ignoring the traffic signal, following the flight of the boy.

Samuel dashed into an alley as Goren and Eames flew out of their SUV, not too far behind... The limo driver took a side street and its alleyway in an effort to head the boy off.

For the thousandth time, Eames cursed the career choice that led to her living half her life in the dark, both literally and figuratively. She couldn't see a foot away from her face.

Not that the journey she'd joined had been unrewarding, but sometimes a more traditional NYPD position looked damned appealing. Of course, with her family's history of civil service, the police force was always where she had wanted to be.

How many times had she asked herself why she stayed with Goren, with his quirks and obsessions? In truth, she could not see herself anywhere but by his side now. By her choice or by his, it didn't matter. She had once tried to break the ties that now held them together, before she really knew Goren. They had been drawn together then and now, by fate, or by whatever force bound them as surely as chains.

Eames stumbled over some boxes in the wet alleyway, and cursed again. Where the hell had the boy gone? And where the hell was Goren? They'd split up a few blocks back, and now Eames wasn't sure she could even find their _vehicle_ again. She paused in the middle of the rain-dappled alley, trying to get her bearings, then headed off on her original course again.

Dim lamplight puddled in front of her, as the alley dumped into the street beyond. Eames skirted the building to her right, and decided to stay on the street, where she might have some slim chance of seeing _something_. A movement caught her eye, and she squinted in its direction. The boy?

"Samuel! Stop!" If the child heard her, he gave no indication of it. Eames ran in his direction, nowhere near catching him, surprised at his speed. He was a good block away and widening the gap between himself and Eames.

The boy disappeared around a corner, and Eames panted as she tried to reach the intersection before he made another turn. Winter coat whipping around her legs, she sprinted around the corner - Samuel was almost at the end of the block already, and Eames felt her calf muscles protest at the abuse.

Movement tickled her peripheral vision, and she felt a rush of air sweep by as the black limo whipped out of the alleyway she had just passed, and on toward the running child, who was unaware of it.

"Samuel!" Eames yelled again. Again the boy ignored her call, kept running, quite literally, she was sure, for his life.

Eames pushed herself to reach Samuel, knowing there was no way in hell she'd beat the car there. For his part, the boy ran aimlessly on, neither toward - nor away from - the car. Still a half block away, Eames yelled hoarsely, knowing it was futile, but knowing she would be too late to do anything more.

As the boy - and the car - neared the intersection, a blur of color drew Eames' attention. Time slowed, and the events that followed played out in slow-motion, as they would for countless nights thereafter.

That blur was Goren, running faster than Eames had never seen him run before. Still sprinting herself, she heard him call Samuel's name, with no more response than she had received.

In order, the three objects - one of them dear to Eames - reached the same exact point in space. First, Samuel - directly in the path of the speeding car - then Goren, midair, throwing his bulk at the boy - then the black limo.

Barely a squeal of tires - certainly no brakes had been applied - a muffled groan - and the car was gone, as suddenly as it had appeared. Silence fell over the street, as Eames rushed toward them.

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**END CHAPTER ONE - Please review? Thanks! **


	2. Chapter 2

**The Unforgotten Child**

**Chapter Two **

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews! And no, I'm not gonna kill Goren off in my first LOCI fanfic. Well, at least not in the first chapter. ((****wg)) **

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**Somewhere near Southern Blvd **

**Bronx, New York**

Samuel lay across the curb, dazed but not apparently seriously injured. His feet trailed into the street, just beyond the outstretched hands of Goren, who lay motionless on the concrete.

"Bobby!" Eames fell to the ground next to them, after visually assessing Samuel's condition. Her heart was in her throat as she knelt next to her fallen partner. Running a shaky hand to his neck, she searched for a pulse. Fast, thready. But at least **there**. She pulled out her cell phone and called in for an ambulance, glancing at the street signs to give their location.

Samuel was struggling to sit up, and Eames spared herself a moment to insure that he was, indeed, alright. He looked scared, tired, but very much alive. She unsnapped her holster, in case the Masucci made another attempt on the boy. They were certainly sitting ducks.

"Bobby, can you hear me?" Eames needed to make contact, to let him know she was there with him. She needed to see the light in his eyes. To know that he was still here with her, as well.

A low moan reached her ears, and she rested a hand on his chest, and one on his forehead. "Don't try to move. I'm right here." Goren's breaths were shallow and rapid.

She felt her partner relax beneath her hands. She ran her hand softly across his chest and stomach, probing his injuries, her heart needing only to maintain contact. She felt him wince when she palpated his chest. "Sorry. I'm sorry." She replaced her hand lightly near his shoulders. Pulling her coat off, she laid it atop Goren, to keep him warm, to keep him from getting too cold as his body reacted to his injuries with shock.

As she rested on her heels beside him, Goren's body was wracked with a spasm in his chest, and his face contorted in a mask of pain. He brought an arm up to his chest, and his breathing grew more shallow.

A small trickle of blood made its way from the side of Goren's mouth, and Eames pressed her fingers to his neck again, more alarmed now. She felt the thready pulse, barely moving against her finger. She leaned closer, placing her ear over his nose and mouth. She didn't hear or feel any breathing.

Eames placed her mouth over Goren's and held his nostrils shut with finger and thumb. Breathing her life into him, she watched his chest rise and fall, then paused to see if it would continue unaided. It didn't. Another quick check revealed that his pulse had failed as well.

"Bobby! Stay with me!" Eames' mind went into first aid-mode as her heart beat wildly within her chest. Well-trained in CPR, she methodically gave thrusts with her hands, and filled his lungs with her breath a second time. Again his cheeks puffed out and back in, and again his chest was still after her breath had left it.

"You're - not - gonna - ditch - me - now," she chanted as she pushed her hands together above her partner's diaphragm, willing him to breathe, willing his heart to start so that hers would not stop.

Sparing a few moments to see if he was responding, her breath came in short pants as she felt for a nonexistent pulse, listened for a breath that was not there. Darker blood now ran more freely from Goren's mouth, and something from her limited training told Eames that she was losing him.

"Dammit! No!" As the day's earlier rains began again in earnest, Eames let her detached mind completely run her administration of CPR, even as her spirits sank, and her hair hung in blonde rivulets atop her shoulders.

"Ma'am!" Vague voices, seemingly far away, invaded Eames' thoughts.

"Ma'am, we'll take over now!"

Blinking, Eames looked up to see paramedics settling in beside her. She was barely aware of them pulling her hands from Goren. Somehow she found herself still beside him, as it should be. Dimly, she heard one of the paramedics tell the other that the patient was breathing, and she released a breath of her own, that she hadn't known she was holding.

Disjointedly, Eames watched as they slipped an oxygen mask over his bloodied face. One paramedic did compressions while the other readied the defibrillator. Eames' coat was long gone, and now Goren's was thrown open and his shirt buttons popped as they readied him for the paddles.

Eames felt like she was watching a film, as they placed the paddles on his chest. She heard one of the paramedics recite the level they were set at, then yell "clear". Not wanting to watch but unable not to, Eames saw Goren's upper body arch spasmodically, then settle back onto the ground. Eames pinned her eyes tightly closed. She felt the shock run through her own body, just as if it had been administered to her.

"We've got a pulse."

How simple those words were. How often had she heard them - and how much more did those words mean here, now?

Eames turned to ask Samuel to come with them to the hospital. He was gone.

Just like that.

"Where's the boy?" Eames asked one of the paramedics. "The boy who was just here - where is he?"

The men exchanged glances. "I'm sorry, ma'am. We didn't see any boy"

Disheartened, she climbed in the ambulance after them, not wanting to delay her partner's treatment. She had been so obsessed, so **focused** with Goren's life that she had lost Samuel. Tears welled in her eyes as she thought what might befall the child now. And the fight that her partner still had before him.

She punched in Deakin's private number on her cell phone and let him know what had happened. She briefed him on the incident, and on Goren's condition. And she asked him to start a search for Samuel.

**END CHAPTER TWO**

**I crave reviews like I crave chocolate!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: The Unforgotten Child - COMPLETE**

**Author: spookycc**

**Chapter Three of Three**

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**Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center ****Fulton Avenue ****Bronx, NY**

**Same Night**

Alex Eames sat despondently in the waiting room outside ER, knowing what was happening inside, but helpless to do anything, other than pray, for her partner's recovery.

Goren was still in emergency surgery, still fighting. He had coded in the bus on the way to the hospital. The EMT's had been able to bring him back, but she could see by the glances they had exchanged that the situation wasn't good.

Captain Deakins appeared beside her and handed her a cup of coffee. She gave him a small smile in thanks, then set the paper cup beside the now-cold, untouched coffee on the table beside her.

Deakins sat down in the chair on her other side, and heaved a huge sigh. "Any word?"

Eames shook her head. "Nothing new."

An ER physician walked tiredly into the waiting room, her short brown hair plastered to her head with sweat, her surgical mask hanging loosely around her neck. Eames and Deakins stood up when they saw her coming toward them. She had spoken to them very briefly before she went into surgery.

"Doctor Sanders. How is he?" Eames asked, as the doctor approached them.

Erin Sanders, M.D. ran a hand through her disheveled hair and nodded at them. "Detective Goren has three broken ribs, and one of them punctured his right lung, causing it to collapse. We inserted a chest tube, and hopefully, that will re-expand the lung and remove the blood from around it. If it doesn't, we'll repair the lung surgically, but we want to wait until his condition stabilizes before we attempt any other surgical procedure."

The physician held out a hand to Eames, who was biting her lip, doing her NYPD-blue best not to cry. "Detective Eames, he's holding his own. That's the best we can expect, for now. He didn't suffer a concussion, which is a minor miracle, although he has quite a lot of facial bruising. We were able to staunch the internal bleeding in his abdomen, and we don't think that will cause a problem. We've given him two units of blood, and he's resting in recovery. "

"Can I see him?" Alex found her voice.

Dr. Sanders bent her head to the side, to get a kink out of her neck - it was a gesture so reminiscent of Goren's own head-tilts that Eames caught herself. "You can sit with him if you'd like, as soon as he's out of recovery," the physician told the cops, "but he won't be awake for awhile."

Eames and Deakins exchanged tired looks. "Thank you, Doctor." Sanders nodded and left them alone.

On the TV perched in the corner, a local news team reported "live from the scene" of the incident. The two perps were both in stable condition - which just made Goren's situation seem more unfair.

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**ICU**

**Early the next morning**

Eames sat beside Goren's bed in ICU. An oxygen canula provided him with relatively easy breathing, and he had some bruising already around his cheekbones - where they'd met the concrete, no doubt, Eames reflected angrily. He looked pale and even frail, despite his size.

Bobby had not been injured very often in his time with MCS, but it still never got easier for Eames to see him incapacitated. Goren was so intense, so much larger than life, that to see him in this condition was doubly hard.

Eames ran her fingers through Goren's tousled, graying hair, easing it back from his forehead. He still felt very warm to her, but she knew the staff was watching his vitals - she moved out of their way each time they came in to check him.

An IV in one of Goren's hands dispensed fluids and pain meds. Eames slid her hand into his unencumbered one, and her small hand disappeared inside his much larger one. His long fingers looked almost delicate now, like a pianist's, as they rested motionlessly atop hers. His hands, normally so active, expressive, now perfectly still...

Goren had not awakened, since his arrival at the hospital. The doctors and techs didn't seem worried by this, but Eames was. And part of her was also worried about Samuel. Deakins had detectives scouring the area they'd left. No traces of the boy had been found.

She eased back into the chair - as much as its design would allow - and settled in for a bedside vigil...

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**ICU**

**Two days later**

Captain Deakins opened the door to his detective's room slowly. Eames was still asleep in the chair beside Goren's bed. Much as he hated to wake her, especially for this, he knew he had to.

Deakins touched her shoulder lightly, and she awoke at once. "Wha-?"

"Alex, I have something I need to tell you."

Eames stood by her partner's bed for a moment, assuring herself that he was ok, and then nodded, and she and Deakins stepped outside the room.

"How's Goren doing?" he asked, though they both now knew he had more to say.

"He's making progress. The doctors said the chest tube is doing its job." Eames replied.

"Good. Good..." Deakins paused, hesitant to go on, knowing he must. "Alex, they, um... they found Samuel last night." He lowered his eyes.

Eames didn't even need to ask in what condition they had found the boy. Deakins' expression told her everything she needed to know. She angrily brushed a tear from her cheek. "How did he- ?"

The captain put his hand on her shoulder. There was no easy way to tell her. "He was shot."

"The Masucci got to him," her response was not a question. Deakins nodded.

"It doesn't make sense," she pondered the loss. "They had him for three months before he broke away. Why kill him now?"

Deakins could only shake his head again. "I dunno. Maybe they'd gotten everything they could from him. Maybe they felt he was no longer useful as a bargaining chip."

"Damn them." Eames had been so sure the police could find him before the Masucci. She should have known better. She went back into Goren's room, and watched while her partner slept...

Sometime later, Eames stirred from her own restless sleep, and stretched, trying to work out the kinks that came from sleeping in hospital chairs.

She leaned closer to the bed, and was surprised to see Goren's hazel-brown eyes looking into hers. She rested a hand atop his, and smiled, her happiness tempered by what she would now have to tell her partner.

"How do you feel?" Alex ran her fingers over his hand.

Goren held up his other hand, glanced at the IV start, reached up and touched the O2 tube that snaked into his nostrils. "Dunno... better than I look?"

Alex smiled a bit again. She spooned a few slivers of ice into his mouth, and he swallowed and continued with a little stronger voice, "Samuel -- ok?"

Eames' face fell, and she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Bobby."

At Goren's quizzical look, she explained. "I checked Samuel and he had no serious injuries. Then you - you stopped breathing, and I couldn't get a pulse. When the paramedics arrived, Samuel was gone."

"We'll find him." Goren rested his head back on the pillow.

"It's worse than that, Bobby," Eames went on. "NYPD found Samuel last night. He's dead. I'm so sorry...:"

"No-" Goren's voice was weaker, and Eames leaned in once more. "Don't blame yourself for what happened while you were helping me. How did he…?"

"Looks like a professional hit." Eames replied.

"Masucci got... beat us to him."

Eames nodded.

Goren shook his head. "Not enough... No matter what I do - never enough..."

Eames sighed. Goren would accept the guilt for this incident, she knew, as indeed he claimed blame for everything negative had that happened, personally and professionally.

Goren's eyes finally slid shut, and his hand went limp within hers, as sleep claimed him once more.

end

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